


Better with Practice

by houdini74



Series: Clint and Marcy [5]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Boys In Love, Committed Relationship, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 23:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19778920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houdini74/pseuds/houdini74
Summary: David asks Clint to give a toast at the wedding.





	Better with Practice

**Author's Note:**

> Writing a story about two characters who, in my head at least, don't communicate very well and who aren't in the same physical location is not the easiest thing. This story comes immediately after An Open Door but is from Clint's perspective.

The wedding invitation has been leaning against the sugar bowl ever since Marcy had set it there last week.

He’s still not quite used to the idea. He’s beyond happy for Patrick and he likes David. He thinks that with time David will easily become one of the family, despite the fact that he’s like no one either Marcy or himself have ever met before. Still, every time he sees the invitation it’s a surprise, as though it’s not quite real.

He doesn’t talk to Patrick the way Marcy does. They never have. It’s not that they don’t spend time together, but they tend to do things instead of talking about them. So ever since Patrick moved to Schitt’s Creek they haven’t really talked other than the time Patrick and David visited last fall.

Even though it’s been almost a year, it feels like yesterday when they met David for the first time. He’s not sure he understands this side of the son he thought he knew. The person who moved away from home so abruptly, who met David and immediately invested in his business and who is now engaged. It feels like everything is happening so quickly, as though the ground beneath his feet has become soft and uneven. 

Maybe that’s been his problem all along. He’s always valued security, planning, thinking through the details. He’d thought that he and Patrick had that in common. Perhaps that’s why Patrick stayed with Rachel for so long, why he spent so much of his life being so unhappy. If he hadn’t taught Patrick to cherish a steady, stable life, would he have been able to find himself that much sooner? He hopes that isn’t the case, that there had been other reasons for Patrick to stay, reasons other than thinking that stability was more important than happiness.

He thinks back to how proud he was when Patrick graduated from business school, how easily he got a job at the local credit union. At the time, it had seemed like Patrick’s life would unfold exactly the way he had always hoped, the way his own life had. He’d always wanted the same things for Patrick that he’d had for himself, a family, a good job. More than that, he’d wanted Patrick to be happy, but up until the day Patrick had left, it had never occurred to him that the things that brought him happiness might not look the same for Patrick.

The day Patrick moved to Schitt’s Creek it had felt like he was rejecting everything that Clint had accomplished in his life. Looking back now, seeing how miserable Patrick had been, he can’t fault him for leaving. If anything, he’s astonished and proud that Patrick made such a leap, took such a huge step for himself, he isn’t sure that he would have had the courage to do the same. Nonetheless, it stings, just a little.

He’s still staring at the invitation when the phone rings with an unfamiliar number.

“Hi Mr Bre...Clint, it’s David Rose.”

David never calls him. He chats regularly with Marcy about the wedding and the store and sometimes, he suspects, about Patrick, but never with him. Immediately, he fears the worst.

“David, is everything okay?”

David laughs a bit awkwardly. “It’s fine. Patrick’s fine. I just...wanted to ask you something. For the wedding.”

“Anything you need.” He assumes David is calling to talk about coordinating their clothes for the wedding photos, so he’s surprised by what he says next.

“My dad is insisting on giving a toast at the reception, even though we’ve told him that we’re not doing that.” 

He can almost hear David’s eyes rolling through the phone.

“So, I wanted to ask if you’d say something...you know, for Patrick.” David’s voice gets softer and as is always the case when his son and his fiancé talk about each other, he can hear how much he loves Patrick. “Patrick says he doesn’t want to have a whole bunch of speeches, so he doesn’t know I’m calling you, I just think it would be nice if you said something too.”

“Thank you, David. I’d like that.”

He hangs up the phone and picks up the invitation. The embossed paper feels heavy in his hand. 

He’s pleased that David would think to ask him, especially if they’re trying to limit the number of speeches at the reception. It’s a sentiment he completely understands, remembering how things had dragged on at his own wedding. At the same time he feels like there’s so much to say that he doesn’t know where to begin.

He’s so proud of what Patrick has done with his life, of the store he and David have built together, of how he has come to terms with who he is. And yet, he’s never told him, he realizes. Never said the words out loud to let Patrick know how he feels.

He was shocked to find out that Patrick had been hiding such a large part of himself from them. At the same time he knows how difficult it is to talk about these things in their lives that are so important. He’s struggled to tell Patrick how proud he is of him and how much he loves him. Marcy says the words so easily and he usually lets her speak for both of them. If he wants Patrick to share his life with them, perhaps it’s past time that he did the same.

He’s still staring at the wedding invitation when Marcy comes in. 

“David just called. He asked if I’d say something at the reception. For Patrick.”

Marcy smiles at him softly, he knows she appreciates how easily David reaches out to them, how he tries to make sure they’re included. The physical distance doesn’t make it easy and sometimes, neither does the emotional distance that they’ve let grow between them. Having David bridge things between them makes it simpler for all of them.

He looks back at Marcy. “I’m not sure what to say.”

It seems like a monumental task to put everything he wants to say to Patrick into a single speech. How happy he is that he and David have found each other. How proud he is to see them build a successful business together. How he hopes that they can reclaim the closeness they had when Patrick was a kid.

“When are you going to get another chance?” Marcy squeezes his arm and begins to unload the dishwasher. As they put the dishes away, he tries to put his finger on why he’s uncomfortable about telling Patrick how he feels. At some point, when he wasn’t paying attention, their relationship had shifted from the casual affection and encouragement of childhood to the formality and distance of adulthood.

When Patrick had been little, it had been easy. Easy to say he was proud of Patrick’s good grades, to tell him he loved him when he scraped his knee. He isn’t sure when it had become so much more complicated than that.

Marcy hadn’t had this problem, he thinks. She’s always found it easy to tell Patrick she loves him, even though he knows that they’ve struggled to communicate over the past couple of years. He knows that Marcy is right. He’ll never get an opportunity as straightforward as this to share these things with his son. Surely if Patrick could take such a huge risk to search for and find a life that makes him happy then he can take this risk and tell him how he feels.

He starts to think through which stories he wants to include in his speech. There’s the time Patrick hit a home run to win the baseball championship and when he got 100% on his math test. But the moments he’s been proudest don’t have anything to do with those accomplishments. He remembers how proud he was when Patrick defended the kid across the street from a group of bigger boys and the summer he volunteered to mow Mr. Halverson’s lawn after he broke his leg. Most of all, he’s proudest of the day Patrick told them he was in love with David. He’s so lost in thought that he jumps when his phone rings. Patrick’s number pops up on the display.

“Patrick.” 

“Hi Dad.”

“How’s the wedding planning going?” Marcy keeps him apprised of the major details, but he wants to ask Patrick anyway.

“It’s fine. I’ll be glad when we don’t have to think about cake or centerpieces anymore. That’s partly why I’m calling. Have you and mom decided how many nights you’re planning to stay? I need to get Stevie to hold the rooms.”

“We’re thinking we’ll come a couple of days early? Four nights in total, I think. If that’s okay?”

“That would be great.” He can tell from Patrick’s tone that he means it, that he’ll be happy to have them visit ahead of the wedding. He thinks about avoiding the topic of the wedding toast, to give himself more time to think through what he wants to say, how he wants to say it. But three years is probably long enough, he thinks, even as he mentally braces himself. 

“Did David tell you that he asked me to give a toast at the reception?”

Patrick laughs, a note of discomfort in his voice. “Yeah, he told me. You know, you don’t have to...if you don’t want to...we didn’t want a bunch of speeches anyway.”

“I want to.” He means it. Despite his worries about finding the right things to say, he finds that he does want to do this for his son but talking about it is harder than he thought it would be. “Patrick...I know I haven’t said it...but I’m proud of you. And I can’t wait to stand up at your wedding and tell everyone.”

There’s a long pause before he hears Patrick clear his throat. “Thank you.” 

“Besides, when else am I going to get a chance to tell the story about the time you decided to jump off the roof onto the trampoline?”

“Okay. Maybe we need some ground rules.” Patrick is trying to sound annoyed, but he’s laughing at the same time.

As the conversation moves on to the well-worn topics of baseball and Patrick’s store, he wishes he’d found an opportunity to do this sooner. It doesn’t come naturally and he knows that Patrick feels the same but maybe with a bit of practice they can both get better at it.

They end the call and he thinks about everything he wants to say at Patrick’s wedding. How he’s in awe of the risks Patrick took to live his life, how proud he is of him and most of all, how much he loves him, how he can see the joyful kid he remembers in the person he has become. He pulls out a piece of paper and start to write.

_‘When Patrick was five years old, he ran away from home. Twenty five years later, he did it again and it was the best decision of his life…’_


End file.
